The Ministry of the Economy, Trade and Business Environment (MECMA) has rejected the exchange of stock in other companies for IAR Ghimbav

• SIF Transilvania announced that it would continue the lawsuits to prevent the implementation of the decision of the General Shareholder Meeting of IAR to assign the company"s important assets to Eurocopter

The Ministry of the Economy, Trade and Business Environment has rejected the proposal of SIF Transilvania to assign shares it owns in various companies in exchange for the shares which the SIF owns in IAR Ghimbav. Under these circumstances, the president of SIF Transilvania said that he would continue the lawsuits against the decision of the General Shareholder Meeting made in the summer of 2010, by which the company"s most important assets were assigned to Eurocopter Romania, part of the EADS, for the purpose of expanding its activity. Eurocopter Romania is a joint-venture between French Eurocopter and IAR Ghimbav, in which the latter (which is controlled by the Ministry of the Economy) only holds 49%.

Moreover, Fercală says he will demand compensation from the government as well because "there are ministers who are appointed to defend a national fortune, not to give it away to some, or else I could just ask the shareholders of SIF Transilvania to give me the building in which we are headquartered". "Something like that wouldn"t have happened in France, for instance", he added. Moreover, Fercală said he no longer believes the announcements made by the government that the number of employees on the Ghimbav industrial platform would increase. "Sometime ago there were thousands of employees over there, now I"d be surprised if there are a hundred left", the head of SIF Transilvania said.

The people of Eurocopter have announced that they would request the appraisal of the shares owned by small shareholders in the company of Braşov. "But they wanted to order this audit from a company with which they are already doing business with, whereas we want an independent evaluator", Fercală said.

In the beginning of this year, the officials of SIF Transilvania were announcing that they had requested to receive shares in Petrom and Transgaz from the Ministry of the Economy. In spring, Lucian Ionescu, the head of the Portfolio Department of SIF Transilvania, was announcing that the company appraises its holdings in IAR Ghimbav at one million Euros. "We would have liked to have shares in Petrom, but the ministry told us that they had already launched the process to sell the state"s stake in Petrom on the Bucharest Stock Exchange and we would have disturbed the listing. The other minority shareholders wanted shares in Oil Terminal and in Transelectrica, but they ran into the same problem, so we eventually decided to request shares in Transgaz", Ionescu said at the time. "By assigning the assembly hangar, IAR Ghimbav will be left unable to operate, and according to the Law no. 31/1990, concerning companies, minority shareholders have the right to exit the company and to be compensated at the fair price ", Ionescu said. In fact, this was the reason that SIF Transilvania and an investment fund - MEI Roemenie en Bulgarije - have succeeded in getting the court to suspend the implementation of the decision of the General Shareholder Meeting concerning the assignment of the assets of IAR Ghimbav to Eurocopter Romania.

In June 2010, the shareholders of IAR Ghimbav approved the assignment of the company"s most important assets to Eurocopter Romania, as a contribution in kind to the company"s capital. According to their decision, which received 79% of the votes in favor, the shareholders approved the participation of " IAR SA in the increase of the share capital of Eurocopter Romania SA with a contribution in kind consisting of land, buildings, fixed assets, manufacturing preparation, technical documentation pertaining to the maintenance, repair and overhaul activities for the IAR 316 B Alouette III and IAR 330 Puma helicopters". Also, according to the decision of shareholders, "the contribution of IAR SA to the increase of the share capital of Eurocopter Romania SA is valued at 3,259,000 Euros and represents the equivalent value of the assets contributed to Eurocopter Romania SA, amounting to 3,533,000 Euros (a value resulting from the Evaluation Report drafted by Romcontrol SA), settled with the amount of 274,500 Euros which represents the unused contribution to the initial capitalization of SC Eurocopter Romania SA (instead of 10 years, they will be used for only 7 years), representing the remaining rights to the beneficial interest on buildings and afferent lands contributed in 2003 by IAR to Eurocopter Romania".

It is also worth mentioning that Eurocopter initially wanted to buy the company of Ghimbav, but it had only offered 1 million Euros, which is why the privatization no longer took place, only to later have this "creative solution" of assigning ownership of the assets of the company to Eurocopter Romania, a joint venture in which the majority of shares - 51% - was owned by the French, and 49% belonged to IAR.

Eurocopter Romania is part of the structure of the European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company EADS N.V. Group of Holland (EADS). The EADS group is present all over the world and operates in sectors such as production and marketing of commercial and military aircraft, telecommunication equipment, defense and security systems, satellites, missile launchers and orbital infrastructures.